Will Israel invade Lebanon before October 1, 2024?
Resolves the same as the original on Metaculus.
Resolution criteria
This question will resolve as "Yes" if, after July 15, 2024, and before October 1, 2024, either the Government of Israel or any two Permanent Members of the United Nations Security Council announce or acknowledge that Israeli ground troops have entered Lebanese territory, and reporting from credible sources indicates that the number of troops entering is more than 100. From the credible sources, it must be clear that the troops are acting deliberately on orders of the Government of Israel and without permission of the currently recognized Government of Lebanon or the assent of the United Nations.
The announcements must describe events that take place (at least in part) between the launch of this question and October 1, 2024.
For the purpose of this question, Lebanese territory is determined by the 2000 Blue Line.
Fine print and additional background information can be found on Metaculus.
Once the original resolves, its resolution will be applied to this market automatically. Trustworthy-ish users are encouraged to resolve this market before then if the outcome is known and unambiguous. Feel free to ping @jskf to request early resolution or to report issues.
1,000
3.00@draaglom Why not leave it open? I like closing markets while we debate resolution on manifold, but here we are just predicting how another site resolves.
@jack I guess the spikes on the market suggest people not reading the resolution criteria carefully, which together with the fact that we are primarily predicting resolution decisions, may be a reason to close, but not a very strong one.
@jack I mean you're the mod and this isn't my question! So I'd defer to you on that.
My thought in suggesting to close was: I think in order of likelihood this will:
(>50%): resolve Ambiguous and all the energy spent trading and debating was for nothing
resolve No on a technicality and everyone's frustrated
resolve Yes against literal resolution criteria and everyone's frustrated
Pausing seems like a recipe for less frustration to me. But if people want to see it opened again, fine by me!
@DanielHeinz what about the 'credible sources need to indicates that the number of troops entering is more than 100. ' ?
@MathYeuxSommet Credible sources have indicated more than 100 troops entered . It’s not a bright line standard, sources only need to ‘indicate’.
@ooah0 The only thing I see in the press on the size of the invasion is that it's less then one division and they where downplaying the numbers compared to the first gaza incursion so. https://www.ft.com/content/a7da45e1-c32d-4d98-903d-214cfae842f0
@MathYeuxSommet @jskf Your source 'indicates' over 100 troops: "The Israeli military said that forces from only one division — which can number between 7,500 and 10,000 soldiers — were involved in the land incursion."
@ooah0 Read closely,'Forces' from one divisison does not mean the entire division was operating.Maybe it was the size of or smaller then a company who knows.
@MathYeuxSommet Under your explanation of 'who knows' -> resolve ambiguous (N/A); however, a division of 'between 7,500 - 10,000 soldiers' were involved in the land incursion highly indicates that the number of troops entering Lebanon was over 100.
@ooah0 https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/ryhngwtr0 at the end of the day it's
up to what the people at metacalculus decide(there is still a question of temporality) but if anything you're probably right since it seems that the specific elements of the 98th divisions that is the one mention in FT,have almost all more then 100 soldiers.
@MathYeuxSommet yeah imo they got this wrong over at metacalc.
But whatever I sold by yes at 70% because I thought they might do this.
Subjectively, I think it's nearly certain that >100 troops have indeed crossed the border by now, but I don't (following the news throughout the evening) believe credible reporting on troop counts exists (though could well be mistaken)
From here, there are a few ways that Metaculus might choose to resolve this. I'd probably suggest @Manifold or @jskf close the market to prevent trading purely based on criteria interpretation.
@MathYeuxSommet I've been trading on the basis that that would be "no".
Take that as you will: I'm a frequent metaculus user, so I feel I have a fairly good read on how ambiguities and conflicts between the letter and the spirit of questions might be resolved, but I've been mistaken before.
I think Metaculus defaults to UTC if time zone isn’t specified. Reporting later tonight wouldn’t meet that time cutoff, as I’m understanding it.
@snazzlePop You're correct on the timing point: https://www.metaculus.com/help/faq/#definitions
Where I think there's some room for ambiguity is:
If a substantial number of metaculus forecasters have been interpreting the time as constraining just the 'announcement' but not the 'credible reporting of troop counts' point (and expecting that clarification may happen over the next few days), there could be a case for an ambiguous resolution or retroactive early resolution. I don't strongly buy this idea, I think the grammar of the resolution criteria are pretty clear, on reflection; but empirically if the metaculus staff find people have been substantially confused or divided, they do tend to resolve ambiguous.
Some users are making the case for inferring troop counts from what has been confirmed (e.g. that the initial operations have targeted villages plural). I'm more sympathetic to this point, but I think it goes against the letter of the resolution criteria.
As I understand it, for conflicts between resolution criteria and the spirit of the question or the question title, the specified criteria win.